Do you want to become a career counselor and help people change their lives? Do you have a passion for helping others and believe you could help them find outcomes that will enhance their career choices? If so, becoming a career counselor might be the right career choice for you.

Do You Have a Passion?

Do you desire to become a coach or counselor? Counseling is a tough gig if you don’t have a burning passion for it. If you have a passion for helping others create a better future for themselves, then you might be a good fit. It starts with passion!

Training to be a Career Coach or Counselor

If you are young and just starting out on an educational journey to become a career counselor, then you can get a BA in psychology, social work, sociology, or a similar major. You get good grades and move on to a graduate program, then you obtain supervised mentoring, and then you may want to take a national test to become certified as a counselor.

However, if you are way past your college days and want to switch careers, the quickest way is to take a coaching program and become credentialed through the International Coach Federation (ICF). Take a program that specializes in career coaching and you’ll be on your way to a new career.

Two Job Mentality

Unless you have plenty of money saved up, you may have to start you career counseling practice on the side while you continue to work your main job. You need to approach this new career with a two-job mentality. You’ll need to build your coaching practice while you maintain the status quo with your job.

A Counseling Practice is a Small Business

Unless you plan to seek out a job with a corporation or government agency, you will probably be starting your own practice. Entrepreneurship is a wonderful thing, but when you become a career counselor, you are starting a small business…and small businesses require hard work, patience, and commitment. You will have to realize your practice isn’t just about being a coach, it is also about the details and complications of running a business.

Become a Career Counselor…or a Coach?

Is there a difference between a counselor and a coach? On the macro-level, counseling looks to the past to help shape the present and future, and coaching looks to the future. Counseling helps people heal from past wounds and disorders, while coaching takes a heathy individual and promotes improvement and enhancement.

But, career counseling and coaching are often used interchangeable or, at the very least, they overlap. A coach might focus more on the client’s life, abilities, talents, desires, and weaknesses. A counselor might look more at particular careers and the way a client fits into various jobs and careers.

No matter what you call yourself, when you become a career counselor, you are in a unique position to help others change and improve their careers, and ultimately improve and enhance their life happiness and personal contentment.

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Fred Philips
Business Coach
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